From Ubuntu to Fedora

Six months ago, I overwrote my Ubuntu installation with Fedora workstation.

From the very first PC I built when I was 15, I have been a Linux user. Windows has yet to, and will never, touch any of my rigs. My servers, my laptop, and my workstation all use various distros. However, being the tinkerer that I am, things tend to get cluttered fast.

I love to install random pieces of software, mess around with configs, break everything, and then inevitably just install a new distro because I'm too lazy to fix anything. My laptop went through that torture recently, but instead of reinstalling the usual Ubuntu (the distro I've been using since I got the machine) I decided to take a brave, strong, independent, girlboss decision and experiment with another distribution.

My victim of choice? Fedora Workstation 43.

Yes yes, Fedora is the #1 most popular non-Debian based distro, I know. But coming from someone who has never (at least without great difficulty) installed a piece of software that didn't have .deb at the end, it was a little intimidated by moving away from Debian entirely.

I have, however, been blown away by the sheer power and ease of Flatpak. Almost every app I care about that doesn't have a native dnf version does have a (official or not) Flatpak version. But even if it does have a dnf package, I'd select the Flatpak over it anyway.

I usually hate GUIs, having never seriously used Windows. I love the command line with every part of my being, especially when it comes to downloading applications. The Flatpak app store is the exception. Not only is the design very sexy looking, but it also has INSANELY good front page app recommendations. I have installed far too many pieces of software that I didn't know I needed until I saw them when I opened the package manager. And it actually works, too. Unlike CERTAIN app stores (staring at you, Ubuntu App Center).

Plus Flatpak has better performance and security or whatever yadada you've heard it already.

Flatpak aside, Fedora has been generally better and smoother than Ubuntu.

HOWEVER

It will automatically update your system on boot, and block you from doing anything while it is. There have been so many times that I wanted to sit down and watch some videos only to wait what feels like 20 minutes for my laptop to actually turn on. It can be disabled in the settings but I'm just too lazy to.

I am still enjoying it, though. Auto updater aside. My experience with it is multitudes greater than Ubuntu, and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking to try a new distro.

I'm too lazy to install it on my main rig anyway tho :p